Speaker suggestion wanted

[RGA]

Well looks are looks -- I remember a fellow saying about the AN speakers that if you want looks buy B&W good music reproduction looks like Audio Note. -- he was there after trading his Totem mani Two's - another speaker that looks a lot better. The saving grace is that you can stuff the AN's in a corner so they may look less exciting but at least they don't take up the living room floorspace. I think one can do a lot visually with them by simply selecting a good finish http://www.triodeandco.com/ANownersys.html.

And yes there are plenty of lousy tubes...but if you're out in Victoria go to Soundhounds and let them show you two big myths about tubes -- they have no bass and rolled off Treble. After hearing big SS amps on the AN E and the 8 watt Meishu the latter had deeper fundamentals and a far clearer top end --- Bryston is basically totally outclassed in every regard. That is what caught my attention. I grew up on SS and CD -- and when I first heard it I was amazed at what could be done with this - indeed, I didn;t know it was tube amp because they hide em in the box.

The Jolida 302b has a tubey sound - Cary, it has been said to me by my dealer who carries AN and Cary that Cary, is stereotipically tubey sounding. I don't want a tubey amp - I want one that doesn't sound artificial and etched and I don't want one that is ovelry warm and veiled (My Sugden A48b was veiled a little and described as Valve like). I'd take a tubey valvey veiled sound over the etchy edgy brittle sound of most SS amps though because so many speakers using metal drivers combined with the SS amps are just downright earbleeding so to "FIX" the problem a valve sounding veiling amp can be desirable.

For me though it rules out both bryston like amps and Jolida like amps. Though I do like both Bryston and Jolida I'd find I'd be using the Jolida as tone control for many speakers and Bryston for speakers that are overly dull to get them to wake up.

Thus I can wholeheartedly recommend PMC and Bryston (and I even "like" the sound) to people - even though it's about as polar opposite from AN as it gets.

The ellis I'm not knocking at all becuase one of the things I REALLY liked about the speaker was its decay which so very very few speakers even hint at at any price - and its vocals -- they are one of the most "seamless" sounding speakers I have heard. And may be even better if it was more of an experienced builder building them. The only issue is that my favorite SS amps will not run them I don;t think. Though I understand that Pass Aleph makes pure Class A amplifiers and Sugden makes a higher watt MasterClass range which probably have plenty of power for the Ellis. The Problem is that the combined price starts to get up there and the AN J and AN E have more bass a more tuneful sound is more open sounding is just as seamless and opens the available amplifier market up greatly and thus may run cheaper as a result.

I would love to hear the top version of the Ellis with such amplifiers as I noted though because there is so few good stuff that I like enough to really want to mention.

[RGA]

Most DIY-ers do one of 2 things...build a proven design, or absolutely take into account the overall synergystic properties of all design considerations. Some are executed better than others. Very, very few buy just any driver and stuff it in a box. The great thing about companies like Seas is that tolerances are incredible straight from the factory. Matching is quite easy. Finding complementary drivers has never been easier with all the choices available today.


I've read this from Peter's posts before. You're reading too much into this. He's got the right approach, but it's an extremely common one. The drivers behave much the same way as any driver with similar excursion. Most 8" woofers don't flap around anymore than the AN E at similar levels. Some are heavier, have lower resonance points, and sp,e require longer excursions of course to produce the same output wihtout damage. This is where the driver acts more like a power tool and less like a speaker IMO. Not great for sound.

Some

Did you get banned at Audioasylum or something -- why not just go there and ask him. The B&W N801 has a 15 inch woofer and it moves far more than the AN E 8 inch does to produce those low notes. So the bigger the woofer by this reasoning should need to move LESS when producing bass at higher levels. I have Wharfedale 3 ways which use 10 inch woofers also paper and they move FAR FAR more than the AN's and the AN's go lower and even wehn i play it louder the driver still moves far less -- you can certainly see it vibrate but when it comes to those big booms the Wharfedales have huge in/out movement -- the AN does not.

"Dear Kelly,
Using 90 dB speakers with any SET and expecting it to be able to give the explosiveness of a full crescendo of an orchestra is quite simply unrealistic, as Thorsten and several others have already commented, assuming off course it is on the recording in the first place (very hard to record to begin with!).

Remember also that most modern speaker drivers are designed for high power applications, not for low power SETs, this means that the voice coils are designed to dissipate a lot of heat first and foremost, which means long speech coils much of the winding outside the linear part of the magnetic field, which is much wider than it should be (further loss of linearity and field focus), in addition the suspension is less compliant and less symmetrical than it needs to be to prevent the long throw from bottoming out, all of these aspects of driver design disadvantage the SET greatly over and above the pure efficiency issues.

Compressions always start in the recording, and I have to say that out of the very large number of recordings I own on both LP and CD a very large portion sound compressed.

Especially modern CDs are mastered to raise the level as much as possible (in the mistaken belief that if a CD sounds "really loud" then it is dynamic sounding) and this results in a "dynamic sound window" which is quite small from bottom (silence) to top (crescendo), such recordings are not good for judging anything, although you may like the music and the performance regardless.

Sincerely,
Peter Qvortrup"

Problem is that this doesn;t directly discuss the issue so just post the question to him or e-mail him -- he gets back to people fairly quickly. It is something that every owner has noted and DR. Cope has noted and I can physically see when playing music.

[drseid]

Well looks are looks -- I remember a fellow saying about the AN speakers that if you want looks buy B&W good music reproduction looks like Audio Note. -- he was there after trading his Totem mani Two's - another speaker that looks a lot better. The saving grace is that you can stuff the AN's in a corner so they may look less exciting but at least they don't take up the living room floorspace. I think one can do a lot visually with them by simply selecting a good finish http://www.triodeandco.com/ANownersys.html.

And yes there are plenty of lousy tubes...but if you're out in Victoria go to Soundhounds and let them show you two big myths about tubes -- they have no bass and rolled off Treble. After hearing big SS amps on the AN E and the 8 watt Meishu the latter had deeper fundamentals and a far clearer top end --- Bryston is basically totally outclassed in every regard. That is what caught my attention. I grew up on SS and CD -- and when I first heard it I was amazed at what could be done with this - indeed, I didn;t know it was tube amp because they hide em in the box.

The Jolida 302b has a tubey sound - Cary, it has been said to me by my dealer who carries AN and Cary that Cary, is stereotipically tubey sounding. I don't want a tubey amp - I want one that doesn't sound artificial and etched and I don't want one that is ovelry warm and veiled (My Sugden A48b was veiled a little and described as Valve like). I'd take a tubey valvey veiled sound over the etchy edgy brittle sound of most SS amps though because so many speakers using metal drivers combined with the SS amps are just downright earbleeding so to "FIX" the problem a valve sounding veiling amp can be desirable.

For me though it rules out both bryston like amps and Jolida like amps. Though I do like both Bryston and Jolida I'd find I'd be using the Jolida as tone control for many speakers and Bryston for speakers that are overly dull to get them to wake up.

.

Or you can buy Tyler and have looks and sound. ;-)

Sorry, couldn't resist. Seriously though, the ANs may not look good to *me,* but to many others they may look superb... it really is a matter of individual preferences. My Tylers (or insert brand X) may look hidious to you and/or others by contrast. Personally I can deal with looks not being to my liking if the sound is superior enough...

My experience with Jolida was on the Tyler Woodmeres (the top of the line for the brand) at CES this year... While the brand has a great reputation, I confess I thought the Woodmeres deserved much better (good sound to be sure, but on a speaker of that caliber it deserved a better amp, IMO)... Cary's tubes I really don't have much experience with so I can't comment on them (my Cary pre/pro is SS).

In the case of SS and its flaws... There are quite a deal of bad SS amps out there (and I have unfortunately owned more than a few in my time). My speakers tend to be very finicky with amps... but when a good one is placed in the chain, you are rewarded. I have found that CODA (which is SS) works nicely with my Tylers (and I suspect it would work with Ellis and many other brands as well).

When you go to CES if you have a chance to stop by the CODA room, check out their class A SS amps... They are quite good, IMO (but also quite pricey, unfortunately). CODA uses my Tyler Linbrook Signature System as one of their reference speakers, BTW. I believe their other reference speaker is one of the upper Von Schweikert models (it might be the super-excellent VR-9). Their room might be worth a look...

As for a visit to Soundhounds, I may just do that... I am due for a trip back to Canada, and I love trying out new brands and stores. I will definitely keep them in mind.

---Dave

[RGA]

It's actually quite an easy dealer to get to for Americans because there is a direct ferry from Seattle right to Victoria. We're hosting the Olympics - I believe the Winter one in 2010. Err don't wait that long LOL

Von Sweikert is something I want to listen to. My personal take is that any SS amplifier smart enough to know that amplifers need to be pure Class A are on the right path. They seem more prevalent now than for a long while.

I think the AN's are BUTT Ugly speakers -- I didn't want to listen to them and was being a kind of gracious customer since the dealer went to the trouble for setting them up. Believe me I would FAR FAR rather buy a B&W N805 which is sleek and sexy. If the sound quality was even remotely "in the ballpark" I would have sacrificed some sound quality for looks.

The same goes for the AMP. I'd far rather own a JADIS tube amp or an ASL or Cary which I could have got for the same price as the OTO SE. Or a pile of stunner SS amps like MF. Ohh I so would like Audio Note to add decent looks to their stuff I mean the OTO is a plain black box with 5 gold coloured knobs on the front. http://images.gppgle.com/imgres?imgu...lr%3D%26sa%3DN

Look at some stunners I wish the OTO look liked -- Jadis http://www.infine-audio.com/marques/...hestra_ref.jpg
or http://www.hifinet.co.kr/upload/hard...yCAD300sei.jpg

And no offense to Peter but even he looks a little disheveled http://www.audionote.co.uk/reviews/britishairways.htm

As for tubes I have not heard a ton and not very many of the high end ones. The Meishu is about $8k and I heard a nuvista with the N801 (which was the best I have heard from that speaker despite the amps meger 11 watts). Trouble is it could not play loud enough to be satisfactory but at the volume it was at it was better than I have heard that speaker sound.

I'm not anti-SS -- my favorite amp under $2k is the Sugden A21a which is pure class A and is also Single Ended. Very conceiveably Sugden's Master Class range can better it such that I would take it over a given pricey valve amp. The OTO SE is one of the bottom end AN amps -- the bottome end SE design...but there is an organic sound and a spatiality and a PULSE given to music is awfully difficult to trade in for pyrotechnic SLAM.

It's all about system matching anyway -- one would hope that at audio shows the speaker maker selects the amp to be connected and or vice versa.

The decision people have to make is are they a gear head or a music listener. I'm the latter...I don't want to be reminded of the system except that every time I turn the thing on I get a little excited by what i'm gonna hear and when I turn it off I think thank God I ran into this company so I can finally not ever be irritated by the thing I paid more than I could afford.

If you find that with anything then you're doing well in my view.